‘Happy Valley’: The title as irony
More and more, movies are giving way in terms of quality to television. Especially to television miniseries, limited and otherwise. Not that long ago, I reviewed the HBO limited miniseries "The Night Of." This week: the Netflix series "Happy Valley," which I reviewed for Spokane Public Radio:
As a place name, Happy Valley is an exercise in irony. And this is true whether we’re talking about the home of Penn State University, which was wracked in 2011 by the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal, or the BBC series of the same name that began streaming in August on the media service provider Netflix.
The Sandusky scandal, which involved a member of the school’s football staff sexually abusing teenage boys – and school officials ignoring the problem for over a decade – is self-explanatory. The BBC series takes a bit more explaining.
Debuting on British television in 2014, the first season of “Happy Valley” is told over six hour-long episodes. It centers on Catherine Cawood – played sublimely by Sarah Lancashire – a police sergeant working in a small town in northern England (it’s filmed in Calder Valley, Yorkshire). Seemingly bucolic, surrounded by lush green hills, the town is afflicted by deep-rooted problems – unemployment, prostitution, drugs and all the normal foibles that accompany human interaction: adultery, divorce, alcoholism, violent incidents and, yes, the occasional murder.
Catherine, we gradually discover, has an intriguing past that includes a mental breakdown following the suicide of her daughter. That breakdown resulted not only in the loss of her career as a police detective, but it ended her marriage, estranged her from her only other child – her son – and ended up with her becoming the custodian of her daughter’s son, who is the product of rape.
When the series opens, Catherine discovers that her daughter’s rapist, Tommy Royce (played by James Norton), has been released from prison. While Catherine is digesting this news, we see what she does not: that Royce has gone to work for a low-level drug operator. And we watch as that operator is approached by a revenge-seeking accountant who has dreamed up a kidnapping scheme that, he promises, will enrich them all.
Naturally, such schemes seldom go as planned when the principals – at least one of whom is a sociopath – bumble around as much as these murderous clowns do. And “Happy Valley” follows suit, especially when Catherine’s attempts to keep track of Royce involve her in the larger caper.
And did I mention that Catherine lives with her recovering alcoholic/heroin-addict sister? And that she, Catherine, is having an affair with her former husband? And that Catherine’s grandson has his own emotional problems, which grow ever more apparent when his father – the rapist – discovers his existence?
This may all seem just a bit much. But creator and head writer Sally Wainwright manages to reveal it all realistically. And this sense of authenticity – that these characters feel like real people instead of American-made TV crime-show clichés – is one reason why “Happy Valley” is such a riveting view.
The other reason is the performances, particularly of Lancashire and Norton (known to Public Television viewers from the “Grantchester” mystery series).
Netflix is screening both season one and two of “Happy Valley.” That a quality program centers on such dark human quandaries may seem like the ultimate irony. I prefer to see it as a happy coincidence.